Moderate Rock

Brian Cook’s bass tone needs no introduction. And even if it did, you wouldn’t hear the words, such is the incredible, inimitable rumble he can conjure. For his latest project though, the former member of Botch and current member of Russian Circles and Sumac, is going solo, and going down the decibels. Under the name Torment & Glory, Cook will release the album ‘We Left a Note with an Apology’ on August 27th.

Watch the video for debut single, ‘No Big Crime’, below and get of sense of Cook’s fuzzy but unflustered folk rock storytelling.

The video nails it, right? This is the perfect soundtrack to a cross country road trip under the sun.

According to Cook, the seed was planted for Torment & Glory sometime back in the mid-‘00s when he found himself crashing on a friend’s couch after a late night of drinking. A weathered vinyl copy of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ was on the living room turntable, spinning endlessly on its run-out groove after everyone else in the house had passed out. Cook opted to give it one last spin before calling it a night but there was so much dust on the platter that the needle only occasionally caught the groove, creating a wall of fuzz distortion with the occasional acoustic guitar and lonesome voice creeping out of the ether. What was ultimately just a fluke of a poorly treated record became the sonic inspiration for a new project.

Cover art and track listing for ‘We Left a Note with an Apology’ below.

• ‘The Burning Car’
• ‘Boylston and Pike’
• ‘No Big Crime’
• ‘Dusk on Main’
• ‘The Kick Drum’
• ‘Mexican Hat, Utah’
• ‘All Men Forever’